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Sneak Peek at Chapter 3, and a Development Update

It’s been a little while, but as promised I’ve been hard at work these last few months. It’s hard to take time away from work to do a big update, and I also wanna leave SOME surprises for the full game, so I don’t know if I’ll be doing any more of those… But, it’s only fair to give some sneak peeks here and there! I’ll probably be doing more small scale updates like this, once a week hopefully, leading up to launch (launch?! Keep reading for more on that!).

(Turn the volume up and you can hear the music change as you go underwater, like some of my favorite games, Banjo-Kazooie and Super Mario Galaxy!)

So here’s a quick look on Chapter 3: Umi Shoals. As you can see, it features a vast ocean dotted with islands and a new swimming mechanic! Gameplay will have you traversing between land and water frequently, each with their own unique aspects and ways of hiding from enemies. For example, underwater you can swim unseen behind those schools of fish, hide in seaweed or giant clam shells, while avoiding enemy Samurai patrolling in little compact submarines (they can’t swim, after all!).

I know that water levels in games can be pretty… divisive, to say the least, mostly because of the swimming controls. I put a lot of thought into how it should work for Sneaky Ninja and decided on totally free movement where you can swim in any direction, and I tried to keep the controls as tight as possible so it never feels awkward to move around. I’m pretty happy with the result, and testing can sometimes lead to me getting distracted and just swimming around aimlessly for a minute or two, which is usually a good sign! Hopefully you’ll agree too once you play for yourself.

Aaaand… that’s it! Like I said, definitely just a quick look instead of a full-size update. The big ones take a long time to put together, so hopefully more frequent bite-size ones are good enough.

But I also wanted to give a development update, since I’m getting close to the end here. I’m still working on creating some content for the chapters, but barring any horrible disasters, Sneaky Ninja should finally be ready to launch in October on PC! It’s been a long, looooong ride, but I’m excited to finally be this close to getting the game out to all of you. I’ll try to share an exact date as soon as I can, but it won’t be much longer now!

The Wii U version will be coming slightly later because of its unique features and also Nintendo’s approval process. I’m hoping early December, but I won’t really know until I get there. More info on that as soon as I do!

In the meantime, if you haven’t already, I’d really appreciate if you could follow us on Facebook and Twitter! That helps us grow and reach more people, which is very important as we get closer to release. And if you’re in a particularly helpful mood, sharing and retweeting helps even more!